Aspar riders continue to hold CRT upper hand

Power Electronic Aspar riders Randy de Puniet and Alex Espargaro, the dominant force in last year's inaugural CRT MotoGP class, continued to hold the upper hand during 2013 pre-season testing.

Last year's CRT champion Espargaro was fastest of the privateers at the opening Sepang test, before de Puniet gained the edge at Sepang II and then again during the final test at Jerez, which concluded on Monday.

de Puniet's best lap time put the Frenchman twelfth on the timesheet, 1.460s behind the best lap by Cal Crutchlow.

“I am really happy because the test finished in the best possible way,” said de Puniet. “We had to wait until 4:30 this afternoon before we could ride but it was worth the wait. The track wasn't completely dry when I went out so I didn't want to take too many risks but we made some slight adjustments to the front suspension and made some interesting conclusions.

“I was three tenths off my best lap from last year without pushing, which is a really good sign considering the conditions. We also managed to iron out the problems we had yesterday so we leave Jerez in very high spirits.”

Espargaro was 14th on the Jerez timesheets, 0.25s behind his team-mate. Avintia rider Hector Barbera was best of the rest, 0.158s from Espargaro

“We did about fifteen laps on the wet track this morning and I had a fantastic feeling with the bike. We did some tests with the electronics and the bike responded perfectly, so I was really happy with that,” commented Espargaro. “In the afternoon we only did an hour and a quarter on track and there were some damp patches out there so it was difficult to get a feeling.

“At least we were able to continue testing the electronics and try to eliminate the rebound I was experiencing in certain parts of the track but we didn't completely manage to do that. We will keep working on it in Qatar but for now we can leave Jerez feeling happy that we have discovered a lot of options for our bike and look forward with optimism to the first race.”